OCVL Ladder System

The OCVL has a set calendar for its regular-season, playoffs, and days of the week.

• Men's division: Monday.
• Women's division: Tuesday.

However, the OCVL operates on what we call a "ladder system". If you win, you move up the ladder, and if you lose, you move down the ladder. Thus, as far as scheduling goes, it means that who, where, and what time your team will play next week, depends on whether you won or lost this week.

Detailed Description of the ladder system

Each division will have between 30 and 40 teams whereby the number of teams is determined by either available gym space, or the number of teams registered. The ladder system works the same for all 3 divisions.

So…
At the beginning of the season, based on the results from a qualifying tournament, and their performance from the previous season, teams in a division are ranked, from 1 to 40 (depending how many teams are registered): the team ranked #1 is the strongest whereas #40 is the weakest. They are then grouped together in groups of 4 whereby each group of 4 is referred to as a tier.
Thus, teams 1 to 4 form tier 1; teams 5 to 8 form tier 2; teams 9 to 12 form tier 3, and so on.

We work on a 2-week cycle. Every week, teams will play one best of 5 match against a team in their tier: the top two teams in a tier will play each other, and the bottom 2 teams will play each other.

So for example:
Let's say that we have the following 4 teams in Tier 2 ranked the following way:

5 Red Scorpions
6 Blue Knights
7 Green Hornets
8 Yellow Jackets

In week 1, Red Scorpions play against Blue Knights (top 2 teams) and Green Hornets plays against Yellow Jackets (bottom 2 teams).

So, suppose that:
In the match Red Scorpions Vs Blue Knights, Blue Knights win.
In Green Hornets vs. Yellow Jackets, Green Hornets win.
Based on those results, the teams are now re-ranked for week 2.

The winner of 5 vs 6 becomes #5, and the loser becomes #7.
The winner of 7 vs 8 becomes #6 and the loser becomes #8.
(Simply put, the two winning teams take the top two spots in the tier, and the two losing teams take the bottom two spots in the tier.)

So, the week 2 rankings will look like this:

5 Blue Knights
6 Green Hornets
7 Red Scorpions
8 Yellow Jackets

So in week 2 the match ups will be, Blue Knights vs Green Hornets and Red Scorpions vs Yellow Jackets. (Again, remember that the top two teams in a tier play each other, and the bottom 2 teams play each other.)

Suppose that:
In Blue Knights vs Green Hornets, Green Hornets win and thus finish the 2-week cycle on top.
In Red Scorpions vs. Yellow Jackets, Red Scorpions win, Yellow Jackets finish at the bottom.

After week 2,
The winner of 5 vs 6 becomes #4 IN THE TIER ABOVE, and the loser becomes #7.
The winner of 7 vs 8 becomes #6 and the loser becomes #9 IN THE TIER BELOW.
(A simple way of looking at this would be that the team that won both its week 1 and 2 matches moves up to the tier above and the team that lost both it's week 1 and 2 matches moves down to the tier below.)

Thus we begin a new 2-week cycle.
For tier 2, week 1 of this cycle looks like this:

5 Black Panthers (the team that lost the 3 vs 4 match in tier 1 above)
6 Red Scorpions (the team that won the 7 vs 8 match in tier 2)
7 Blue Knights (the team that lost the 5 vs 6 match in tier 2)
8 Purple Gators (team that won the 9 vs 10 match in tier 3 below)

Yellow Jackets have moved down and are now at the top of tier 3, whereas Green Hornets have moved up and are now at the bottom of tier 1.

The OCVL operates in such a way that, if you will be moving out of your tier to start a new two-week cycle, there is a good chance that you will be playing in a different gym, or at the very least on a different court.

For the final 12 weeks of the regular season, your team’s ranking will be recorded and averaged. This average rank will be used to determine your overall ranking going into the playoffs. The top eight teams based on average rank will be playing in elimination style playoff for the "A" division title. The next eight teams, teams ranked 9 to16, will be playing an elimination style playoff for the "B" division; teams 17 through 24, will be playing for the "C" division title, and so on.

3-Team tier

Play in a 3-team tier could be considered a double mini round-robin:

Each week all 3 teams play 2 best of 3 matches.

• Match 1 is Team 1 vs Team 3
• Match 2 is Team 1 vs Team 2
• Match 3 is Team 2 vs Team 3
• Set up is done by TEAM 1* and takedown by TEAM 2*

* Team 1 being the highest ranked team in that tier and Team 3 being the lowest ranked.

The first week’s results are used to re-rank teams giving the best team a more favourable schedule for week 2 of a 2-week cycle.

The second week’s results give each team the opportunity to “move-up” to the tier above.

How It Works

All of these matches are best of 3 (25pt, 25 pt, & 15 pt).

Each week there are really only two possible outcomes:

• outcome “A”: one team has 2 wins, one team has one 1 & 1 loss, and one team has 2 losses.
• outcome “B”: each team has 1 win & 1 loss

For outcome “A”:

Teams are easily re-ranked the following week based on their performance: the team with 2 wins, takes the top spot, the team with 1 win and 1 loss takes the #2 spot and the team with 2 losses takes the #3 spot.

For outcome “B”:

After week 1 of play, the rankings will be frozen and the same schedule is played in week 2.

If outcome ”B” occurs after playing week 2 of a 2-week cycle, the rankings will be frozen from the previous week and the team that would move up to the tier above is the team that is in #1 spot.

Essentially, it means that to guarantee that you move up and out of a 3-team tier, you would need to win both your best of 3 matches on week 2 of the 2-week cycle.

Schedule Fairness

Starting in the 2015-2016 season, the 3-Team tier weekly schedule will automatically modify the match order so that no team will play the split two weeks in a row.

How it works: For every week, the system checks to see if the same team is the last place in the 3 team tier. If it finds this case, it will simply swap the match times for the first two matches. For a three team tier, the matches are the following:

• Match 1: 1-3
• Match 2: 1-2
• Match 3: 2-3

So if there is such an event, the times for Match 1 and 2 will simply be swapped. The top team in the tier will still get to have the first two matches, but instead of the third ranked team getting the split schedule (i.e. playing the first and third matches), this will change to team 2.

The other scenario of interest is when a team is in the 2 position and their week is swapped. This will cause them to play the split matches. Let's say that they lost and will become the third ranked team in that tier. Since they played the split last week, they will not again. In this case, the first two matches will swap again. Since the teams are different, no teams will play the split two weeks in a row.